Under
the cover of darkness, a visibly harried miner (Hisashi Igawa)
and his young, impassive son (Kazuo Miyahara), accompanied by another
desperate co-worker, desert their employers at an unidentified mining
village in order to strike out on their own as migrant hired laborers
away from the inhumane working conditions of (and overreaching control
exercised by) the powerful and consuming industry. Some time later,
on a desolate and barren rural province, the miner is observed subsisting
through an even more meager - and disreputable - enterprise by feigning
to prospect for coal at a worthless mine for a gullible old man in
exchange for food and lodging, as a methodical and inscrutable stranger
impeccably dressed in a crisp white suit (Kunie Tanaka), obscured
by the stone memorials of a nearby cemetery, takes a photograph of his
subject from an undetected distance. Fleeing to another town before
his ruse is uncovered, the miner eventually finds employment at another
organized mining operation, where he settles into a familiar routine
until one day when the supervisor takes him aside with the ostensibly
positive news that a larger agency wishes to personally hire him,
the earnest proof of his job offer confirmed through the miner's
photograph that accompanies the agency's unusually specific request.
However, when the miner and his son arrive at the appointed location,
they encounter a disquietingly near empty village whose sole remaining
resident, a bored, candy store proprietress (Sumie Sasaki) awaiting
her lover to send for her, explains that the town's mine had been
closed to preclude the danger of collapse and caused the area to
become abandoned as people left to seek elsewhere for employment.
Inexplicably lured into the ghost town, the unwitting miner
encounters the mysterious man in the white suit and meets his
incomprehensible, but seemingly fated, destiny.

Based on the experimental fiction of postwar novelist Kobo Abe, The
Pitfall is a haunting, spare, and elemental, yet
surreal and atmospheric portrait on alienation, spiritual bankruptcy,
and moral descent. Creating his first feature film, Hiroshi Teshigahara
combines the stark realism of his earlier short, documentary works
represented by films such as Hokusai,
a reverent overview of the works by the seminal Ukiyo-e artist,
Katsushika Hokusai; Ikebana, an
introductory film on the art, design, and aesthetics of floral composition;
and José Torres,
a two-part portrait of the humble and mild-mannered Olympic athlete and light
heavyweight boxer) with the Kafkaesque psychological nightmare of Abe's
allusive modern fiction in order to interweave states of consciousness
and subjective realities into a compelling exposition on the nature of
existence (an existential theme that is also explored in another feature,
Woman in the Dunes). Teshigahara
further expounds on existential fate through the use of doppelganger
imagery that not only interconnects the seemingly disparate lives (and
fates) of the destitute miner and the influential trade union leader
(a provocative examination of identity that Teshigahara develops in a
subsequent film that is also based on an Abe novel, The
Face of Another), but also visually
reinforces the metaphysical connection between the living and the
dead inhabitants of the literal and figurative ghost town. Note
the condemned, perpetual, empty motion articulated by the dead
townspeople that mimic their actions at the moment of death, the
evidence and validation of their corporeal existence reduced to the
Sisyphean ritual of their meaningless - and anonymous - human struggle.
Inevitably, the precariously collapsing pit serves as a dark and
ominous reflection, not of a town's descent to economic ruin, but of
the moral abyss created in the wake of greed, exploitive commerce,
and inhumanity.

Hiroshi
Teshigahara crafts a spare and haunting allegory for human existence
in Woman in the Dunes. An entomologist
(Eija Okada) on holiday from Tokyo has come to a remote desert in
order to study and collect specimens from the local insect population.
As he momentarily rests on the sand dunes, he ponders a fundamental
existential question: does a person's recognized achievements validate
his existence? Is the value of his life measured by the number of
certificates and awards he has received in his lifetime? For the entomologist,
the answer is clearly reflected in his latest quest for an unclassified
beetle that, if found, would be named after him in all the scientific
journals. After lapsing into a daydream, he is awakened with the news
that the last bus has left for the day, and the villagers arrange
for him to stay with a young widow (Kyoko Kishida) who lives at the
bottom of a sand dune. Soon, fragments of the woman's odd existence
begin to surface: the pervasive contamination of sand throughout the
house, the economy of food and water, the shoveling of the sand from
dusk to dawn. She reveals the tragic details of her life - her husband
and child buried under the crushing weight of the shifting sand -
and alludes to his extended stay as her permanent company. The following
morning, his attempt to leave the dunes is thwarted when he realizes
that the rope ladder he had used to descend to the woman's house had
been retracted, and the sand formations are too amorphous to climb.
Eventually, the cyclic, seemingly mindless ritual is laid out before
him: the shoveled sand is exchanged for provisions; the sand is hauled
away at night and sold in the black market for construction; to stop
shoveling would bury the house, and the adjacent house becomes at
risk. Given an eternal task similar to the mythical Sisyphus, the
entomologist asks the woman: "Are you living to shovel, or shoveling
to live?" Resigned to an existence of displacing sand that will invariably
be re-deposited by the following morning, can his life have existential
meaning beyond deferring the inevitable cascading of the sand? In
the barren landscape of the shifting dunes, is there a redemptive
purpose in performing the monotonous, uncomplicated task? Or is the
meaning of life reserved for only those who pursue the artificial,
created cerebral exercises of modern civilization?

An
off-camera psychiatrist (Mikijiro Hira) overseeing a processed batch
of prosthetic appendages describes his fragile role of diplomatically
treating - not a patient's physical imperfection - but rather, the
psychological insecurity that underlies his seemingly superficial
malady. The curious, fragmented shot of randomly floating, artificial
body parts is subsequently reflected in an X-ray profile of a smug
and embittered burn victim named Okuyama (Tatsuya Nakadai) as he
recounts to the quietly receptive psychiatrist his own culpability
in the fateful industrial accident that had permanently disfigured
him and now estranges him from his co-workers and family. The
clinically disembodied images are then commuted into the equally cold
and sterile Okuyama household through a dissociating, close-up shot
of a human eye that zooms out to reveal his beautiful and mannered
wife (Machiko Kyô) busily occupied in her hobby of polishing
gemstones as the acerbic and insecure Okuyama attempts to test her
affection and fidelity with vague and allusive casual remarks and
open-ended questions. Spurned by his wife after a spontaneous and
awkward attempt at intimacy, Okuyama returns to his psychiatrist and
agrees to participate in the testing of the doctor's latest experiment:
a prosthetic mask molded from the facial characteristics of a surrogate
donor. Now liberated by a sense of faceless anonymity and relieved of
personal and professional entanglements, Okuyama takes up residence at
a modest boarding house and begins to test the limits of his traceless
identity.

Marking Hiroshi Teshigahara's third adaptation of novels by modernist author
Kobo Abe, The Face of Another is a highly stylized,
psychologically dense, and provocative exposition on identity, persona,
freedom, and intimacy. From the opening sequences of isolated anatomy,
Teshigahara establishes the fractured tone of the film's narrative.
Surreal, aesthetically formalized shots of the oppressive prosthetic
laboratory underscore the atemporal and geographically indeterminate
nature of the universal parable. (Note the disjunctive effect of
freeze-frames, muted ambient sounds, and cultural polyphony of the
doctor and patient meetings at a German pub-themed bar that further
contribute to a sense of existential ambiguity and pluralism). The
intercutting parallel, elliptical narrative of a facially scarred
young woman (Miki Irie) - whose character introduction is intriguingly
accomplished through a wipe-cut (and therefore, may only exist as a
figment of Okuyama's imagination) - creates, not only a pervasive
sense of alienation, but also betrays the unsympathetic protagonist's
internal chaos and capacity for emotional violence. Combining
striking, elegantly composed visuals with innately humanist themes
of connection and identity, Teshigahara composes a haunting,
cautionary fairytale of masquerade and revelation, defect and
vanity, impersonation and self-discovery.

Hiroshi
Teshigahara's Antonio Gaudi is a spare,
astonishing, and haunting documentary on the designs of famed turn
of the century Spanish architect, Antonio Gaudi (1852-1926). A profound
influence on the Spanish art nouveau movement, Gaudi's sensual adaptation
of Gothic, Middle Eastern, and traditional architecture is a truly
a unique artistic vision. Teshigahara immerses the viewer into Gaudi's
unorthodox vision using lingering takes and mesmerizing panning sequences,
accompanied by an equally eclectic soundtrack that vacillates from
lyrical symphony to disquieting near silence. The film, largely structured
without verbal narrative, unfolds as a figurative mosaic of Gaudi's
early influences and nascent vision in the mid 1800's - from an overview
of the Catalonian culture, to the contemporary works of other prominent
architects, to the medieval art and architecture pervasive in the
region. The first building featured is the Gaudi and Cornet collaborative
project, the Casa Batllo (1904-1906) in Barcelona - a bizarre fusion
of organic and inorganic, primitive and modern architecture: the massive,
sinewy columns that flank the main entrance; the windows sectioned
off by bone-shaped structural members; the textured, reptilian-like
free-formed roof; the profile of the stairs resembling an arched vertebrae.
The second building, Casa Mila de Pedrera (1906-1910) was constructed
to function as a residential complex: the undulating structural profile
reminiscent of a beehive colony is echoed in the latticework of the
main entrance, and the scalloped ceiling pattern further emulates
the motion of the waves. The Casa Vicens (1883) and the House of Guell
(1884-1887) further exemplify his medieval influences, from the ornate
floral work (Casa Vicens) to the elaborate dragon entrance (House
of Guell). Guell Park (1900-1914) was designed to provide a seamless
coexistence between nature and structure - the fantastical, fairy-tale
inspired playhouses; the whimsical, intricate mosaic of the fountains;
the fanned columns resembling a palm tree; the amorphous open field.
The unfinished Temple of Expiation of the Sagrada Family (1882-present)
near the Barcelonian waterfront is a visually intoxicating monumental
work with its intricate religious sculptures, soaring arches, disorienting
spiral staircase, and patterned mosaic work. The project, abandoned
due to Antonio Gaudi's untimely death and the Spanish Civil War, has
recently been reactivated as a testament to the legacy of this architectural
visionary. Sadly, reluctantly, the film concludes with a shot of the
construction site as Gaudi's profoundly simple philosophical statement
appears on the screen:"Everything comes out of the Great Book
of Nature. Anything created by human beings is already in there."

An
early episode in Rikyu shows
the ceremonial tea master, Sen-no Rikyu (Rentaro Mikuni) meticulously
poring over his modest garden in search of a perfect flower,
carefully cutting his selection behind a retaining trellis,
before instructing his apprentice to cut all the remaining
flowers in the garden that are in full bloom. Moments later, the
powerful warlord Hideyoshi Toyotomi (Tsutomu Yamazaki), concernedly
looks around the flowerless garden before entering the spartan and
intimate tearoom by climbing through the small door opening and into
the direct line of sight of the harvested flower that has been arranged
on the opposite wall. Instantly, the hurried and distracted Hideyoshi
changes his demeanor and pauses in stunned silence, visibly overcome
by the thoughtful presence of the solitary white flower in the humble
room. It is an understated moment that summarily defines the mutual
respect and kinship between the methodical and disciplined Rikyu
and the brash and mercurial Hideyoshi's relationship as well. Once
serving as the tea master under Lord Oda Nobunaga (Koshiro Matsumoto),
an ambitious warlord who aggressively sought to unite Japan under
his rule and opened diplomatic, religious, and trade relations with
the Portuguese (who had access to the Asian spice trade route through
Goa), Rikyu retained his venerable position under Hideyoshi after
the loyal and calculating general avenged his master's death and
wrest control of Lord Oda's vast feudatory over the traitorous, competing
warlords. Using invitations to Rikyu's formal tea ceremonies as an
effective ruse from which to conduct delicate diplomatic negotiations
among the unassimilated, rival feudal states, Hideyoshi eventually
succeeds in realizing Lord Oda's ambition to unite Japan through
peaceful means. However, when the Hideyoshi declares his intention
to invade China as a step towards his overreaching quest to create
a Japanese empire in the Pacific, Rikyu's tempering influence over
his impulsive student is tested.

Based on the life of the legendary tea master Sen-no Rikyu (1522-1591),
Rikyu is
a serenely contemplative and formally exquisite exposition on aesthetic
philosophy, refinement, and spiritual unity. Thematically expounding
on Rikyu's spare and minimalist principles of the wabi-cha
(literally, 'desolation-tea', or the reductive practice of paring
the tea ceremony to its humble and meditative essence in order
to heighten one's sense of awareness), Hiroshi Teshigahara incorporates
wide spatial framing (often placing characters in medium shot), natural
and diffused lighting, and slow, unobtrusive tracking shots that
distill the film's essential visual composition and maintain purity
of focus. Teshigahara further reinforces the cultural legacy of Rikyu's
simple, yet elegant integrated life philosophy by dedicating the
film to mid-century modern designer Isamu Noguchi and Sofu Teshigahara,
the filmmaker's father and founder of the Sogetsu School of
Ikebana that integrated principles of modern art into the
traditional art of floral composition. Set against the transience of
history as a united, 16th century Japan initiates a campaign for the
invasion of China - a devastating imperialist policy that would again
resurface during the early 20th century with the Manchurian conflict
- the film becomes a subtle, yet provocative testament to civilization's
true enduring legacy, not through militarism and territorial aggression,
but through the peaceful cultivation of taste, art, and national
culture.